Category Archives: facing grief

When desperation blinds you…

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I want to say this, before I forget…before it slips into mist and memory…

It wasn’t the job. It was me. And I would never call into question or judge a mother who pursues employment. That is not what is at issue for me here, at this way station in seasons.

Beware desperation.

I’ve whispered of it here and there, but we’ve faced a mighty battle with debt- particularly student loans. It was precipitated by two years of unemployment. All in all, our nightmare has lasted just about three and a half years. It began not four weeks after losing our fifth child to miscarriage. I have known the darkness, the inky black night, the shadowy whispers of pain that blind.

But He promised us that He was mighty to save. And He has. And He will.  Yet- somewhere in the middle, I kept company with Sarai and Hagar, Abram and Ishmael. I lost confidence in my Lord’s will, and I thought I could fix things. And so, as Sarai sent Hagar to Abram, I sent ‘a promising email’ to my husband, a job, a work from home position. My beloved had reservations. Many. And I, in my desperation, shoved past the red flags of wisdom crying out for attention. This is not to say that some sort of employment was ahead for me, or that He had provisions waiting for us if we had trusted His timing…but I can tell you even then, we knew this job was not the wisest course of action for our family. I ignored it.

I would spend the next year and a half trying to find a balance that could not be found. I lost perspective, lost purpose- I would care for our family from dawn until dusk, and then would work from dusk near to dawn again, each precious hour of sleep and clarity slipping into the darkness, never to be retrieved. Chronic exhaustion takes its toll; depression soon became my constant handmaiden and companion.

I cannot emphasize this enough, dear friends. I don’t care what vocation you pursue, but if you sacrifice the rest our wise and gracious God has ordained for us, something is not as it should be. If it’s a constant, instead of an occasional, occurrence, check your heart-call. I have serious doubts that the Lord would call you to a task that includes such a thing. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. In Christ’s ministry, there was always a balance between rest and action. Always. If things are ridiculously hard, if you’re making decisions that are totally contrary to your heart, maybe the Lord is creating the friction to call you back to His purpose.

I speak from my life. I should have heard Him clearly when I fell so ill last year. It’s almost laughably obvious. I fell so ill quite simply because my body could not run on fumes—and yet—I would go on to work for the company for another year. A year. And I could not understand why I could not heal, why I could not get well. But I wouldn’t stop. For another year. I have paid the price. I will probably never be as healthy as I was before I began this job, unless the Lord sees fit to restore what the locusts have eaten. I will spend the rest of my life caring for my body because I nearly destroyed it in desperation.

Oh, that I were not so stubborn! The Lord needed a two by four to smack me across the back of the head, and so, late at night on a family outing to a local Christmas light show, I missed the (rather obvious) hitch point protruding from the back of my fifteen passenger van, tripped…and shattered my wrist. My right wrist, my dominant hand. I could no longer work in any capacity- I could not type. I could barely dress myself, comb my hair. And then—I finally heard Him. I submitted my resignation within days. I will always see my deformed wrist now, and think of Jacob and the angel of the Lord and Jacob’s thigh… I will bear the mark of stubbornness the rest of my days.

I beg you, dear friends, to trust in the Lord and lean on His understanding, and acknowledge Him in all your ways. Don’t ever get to the point of desperation that you feel that you must trade your heart and body. Debt is awful, but it is never worth that. It’s never worth running ahead of God. But- if you have found yourself right-tangled, as I have, know that He is might to save, and He will not forsake you. Confess, repent, and trust. The storm will still rage, perhaps even for a long time- but He will be with you.

Here I stack these stones, mark an Ebenezer. May the Lord in His grace lead me away from this place of sorrow.

A new song…

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I remember catching sight of this silhouette some afternoon while making dinner, and smiling. I wanted to take a picture of it.

Then I tried to find my camera.

Ahem.

It was a week and a half later that I finally captured the image. (The piles, the piles! I think my brain is buried under one of them.)

Catching us outlined on the refrigerator door seemed so right to me, so fitting. It is the best self-portrait I could think of at this time in my life.

Motherhood has been such a strange journey for me. It almost always takes me by surprise to have other mothers ask me for advice- my brain is still stuck in ‘young mom’. I sort of do a mental double-take: “me? Are you talking to me?” And then I sort of giggle at myself and realize that here I am, with five children, and a boy of seven- I’ve got a few years under my belt now. But the fact is, I married young, I had children very early in our marriage, and I had no clue what it really meant to be a mama when I started. Oh, I had babysat a lot- and I had regularly cared for a family of four children- so the care of children was not a difficult thing. But the true work of mothering- the late nights, the early mornings, the pain, the prayers, the discipling, the disciplining, the kissing of booboos- this was unknown territory for me.

I found the balance between who I was as a person and who I was as a mama nearly incompatible when I started. I couldn’t see how I could still be myself and be a good mama at the same time. I couldn’t see how I could bring my creativity and deep abiding passion for life and zest into my work as a mama. For the longest time I couldn’t see being a mama as a job at all…it was something that I sort of crammed in around the edges of life. Frustration courted me on every side then…I was trying to do too much. I realize that now…it’s easy to see now. But then? I liked banging my head aside a wall for no good reason. Gracious, if I am anything, I am stupidly stubborn.

Lorelei arrived. She was all sweetness and light, and oh, how I fell in love. Hard.  I was finishing up my degree at university at the time. Right after graduation, postpartum depression sucked me under. My husband says that I slept for about six weeks straight, and I don’t doubt him. I remember the drowning feeling, not being hungry, only waking to nurse Lorelei and then fade back into oblivion. When I finally ‘came to’- it was a different world. A darker world. The simplest of decisions troubled me- what to eat, what to wear, which shoes to put on. It’s almost like learning to walk again, stumbling through the bedrooms, weakly finding your way down the hallway, muddling your way around the living room- everything looks familiar, but you feel like you have a veil over your face. I wish I had found treatment then! (Before I forget, Elizabeth linked to a much-needed discussion on the subject of post-partum depression and faith…please go over there and read if you think you might be struggling with PPD! She also has a great list of important things when it comes to PPD and taking care of oneself. And this is a good description of the thought process of struggling with depression.Please, don’t feel like you are alone in this!) David arrived a year later.

I spent the next year and a half fighting for life, you might say;  the strange thing is, I found my life when I almost lost it- during a miscarriage that went horribly wrong. That was two years ago now. I still struggle with depression and perfectionism off and on- it is a rare mama that doesn’t, I suspect- but neither has me in a desperate stranglehold. When I look back across my mothering journey over the years, I realize just how far I’ve come.

These last few months have not been easy with James working the second shift- they’ve been the most intense months I’ve experienced in many a year- but they’ve been good. I don’t know how to explain it, exactly. And I did say to my husband just last night that if motherhood is sanctification, good gracious, has this been a most intense period of sanctification, of constantly dying to self- but it has been good. I think part of it is that I have am glad that I have borne this trial well- or at least as well as I could- and that I am coming to the end of it actually thriving instead of just surviving. I consider this all grace- truly the Lord’s doing- and I have no idea how I got here. It was a heart’s prayer, for good and certain. It blows my mind (in a good way). I never thought the day would come when I would feel truly comfortable in my skin as a mama- that I could balance all the many demands on my time, on my emotions, on my sanity, when I could balance a nursing baby while preparing dinner and catch a photo of the reflection, to boot. I cherish this feeling. I will remember it when things get harder again, as they are wont to do, because we do live in a broken world and rare is the moment we are not in the fray of battle.

All this to say- I am singing a new song and am glad of it- I could practically trill with the birds outside the window. I write all this to give you hope. It may seem so awfully dark wherever you are right now. But if you are patient, dear one- the light will stream through the window and you’ll find yourself smiling too.

Love story: Morning has broken…

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The steam was rising off my coffee in spiral swirls; I had been staring at the airy designs for many minutes, unseeing.

The voice rushed around me with a pop of air.

” Do you really think He’ll come through for you?”

In a whiny insinuating tone, Fear began to recite a laundry list of the many times God had supposedly failed me. It began to take on a droning, bored quality in true Bueller style—and the spell was broken for me.

I laughed a beleaguered chuckle. Addressing the early morning air around me, I spoke aloud.

“You know, the thing I don’t get about you- you seem so much smaller and ever more so annoying in the light of day. And, you always seem to forget yourself.”

” But dear,” the contentious voice responded, “it seems to me that it is you who have forgotten. You’ve forgotten how much you’ve screwed up, face first in the mud. Why on earth would anyone want to touch you, let alone Him?”

I could almost imagine him taking a long drag on his cigar, swirling the mint julep, looking at me like a cheshire cat, thinking that he had just won.

His mistake was calling me dear.

” I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.” (I John 2:12) The verse from 1 John came to mind, and that was it, the battle was over. I had managed to memorize the book a couple of months ago, and verse after verse cascaded through my thoughts. Can you almost see the surprise in Fear’s face? He must have spit his drink out over his coat, I am sure.

Head cocked to the side, I stared into my now-cold coffee.

“Well, I think we’ve had an…er…interesting chat. But as you have no right to be here, I suggest you get a move on, alright? ”

My husband found me like that, head to side, staring down into the inky depths of my coffee as if it held all the answers. His voice and movement made me jump.

“G mornin’ Angel- how’s it goin’?” His sleepy voice drew down deeper into his slow southern drawl. I smiled inwardly- his voice, his drawl are like elixr to me- I still get butterflies when I hear him. It’s half the reason I fell in love with him in the first place. I must have startled and stared at him a bit too long, because his voice edged with concern- “Angel?”

Trying to recover the moment, I answered over-brightly “Great! Didja sleep well?” Cringing, I took note of the banshee screams in the background of two boys carousing, the angry shrill words of my Lorelei fighting with her brother, and a baby making his needs known.

“Angel, beloved- you sound- uh, not yourself. What’s going on?”

I sighed, a near sob. “Do ya have a minute? I’ve got a long list.” A sad, sardonic smile.

He reached across, taking the coffee cup out of my hands and placing it on the kitchen counter, wrapping me up in his arms.

” I know, my Angel. I know. It’s really tough.”

I couldn’t muster a whole lot to say, other than, “I’m scared. No, I’m terrified. I’m incoherent, unable to think.”

His eyes, green, brown, gold, swirled and flipped and focused as he looked at me. I could see the change in him, the square of shoulder.

He knows my history. He has sat quietly, listened, loved me through the dark days. He was and is my safe place to land, and he knew what my admission meant. I was overcome in battle.

“Well, the only way out is to remember, right? Let’s start the list. Let’s tell His story. Let’s remember what He said.”

—-

To read Part 1: And so it begins.

To read Part 3: Redemption.

Love Story: And so it begins…

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There is a story that needs telling, and you all have been waiting. I have been finding tiny spots of time to scribble it out long hand, and now, I begin. There are many more stories to be had over here- make sure to have a tissue or two handy. So often He sings love songs over us. Now it is time we sing love songs over Him. Soli deo gloria.

—-

His eyes are green, flecked with gold. He has a swirl of hair that curls over his right temple, gray quietly knitted through.

James has a smile that cracks first from right corner, spreading slowly to left. The smile usually develops into a half moon and then disappears behind a cloud of tired exhaustion. Right now, though, it is full fledged, ear to ear, nearly wrapping around his head as he laughs, full and long and loud.

I forget why. I just laugh along with him.

At that odd moment, the thin reedy voice of the nun from Sister Act whispers through my consciousness…”I will follow Him, I will follow Him wherever He may go”… I begin to laugh so hard that my laugh becomes nearly soundless. A muffled snort escapes my lips and James’ eyes pop with glee at my embarrassment. Because isn’t it funny, the pop tune turned worship, sung by a nun who’s ninety three, whose voice imprints on this jolly moment with my beloved?

Exhaustion can make anything funny…we are soon guffawing at who knows what till the tears fall and we grin at each other, breath coming in short bursts, like a train desperately trying to make the hill.

It is only later in the dark watches of night, bed empty beside me, that the song comes whispering back.

I turn it over in my mind, laughing at the convoluted plot line and cheesy nineties shtick of the movie, thinking of all the old tunes that sound like nails on chalkboard, horribly redone at least once a decade by a star desperate for a little glimmer. I glance out the window at the full moon, the cut glass sparkle of the snow pestering through curtain, taunting. The wind rushes by a corner of the house and the siding pops, smack crack, smack crack.

I toss over again, blindly pulling at blanket caught knotted around my legs. The jaws snap and I am fully awake, absorbed by the fetid, churlsome scent of the beast, desperately gasping at air. This dark one and I, we have danced late night tangos and early morning duets, much against my will. But as the hours turn long I relax into the embrace, caught up in the power of the whispers, ravished.

Fear.
I stare into the darkness, watching the moonlight glint upon the wall, the grey green wall of the bedroom. I hear Josiah’s breath at the foot of the bed, snug in cradle, rising and falling, a gentle whiffle, sigh. My home falls in place around me as I twist a stray thread in the comforter. I take a deep breath and look off into the darkness again. Waiting.

I am humming the Sister’s ditty, and I cling to it as if to a lifeline. I will follow Him. I will follow Him wherever He may go. There isn’t a valley too deep, a mountain so high it could keep…

…it echoes off into the slate gray of silence.

A rush of air curls around shoulder. “You may follow, but will He come? You know how these things go, my dear.” The voice sits upon the “dear” with a condescending tone, curled in question.

Memories cascade through consciousness, a flood rushing onslaught against my feeble sandbagging attempts, whispered protest.

“It’s not true. He has come. He has dwelt with us. He has provided -”

” Oh poppycock and horseradish. What about all the times He didn’t show His face? Do you really think? Do you really think that He will?”

I stop. Another deep inhale of breath. I listen close to the sounds of my children sleeping around me, finding my breath in their own, willing that my heart will stop this dreadful booming and thudding in my ears. I pull pillow over head, as if that would stop the cruel taunting voice echoing in my thoughts. Time crawls by. I can hear the strange trill of the refrigerator as it makes more ice.

The minutes stretch long and lean, and I am caught in wordless prayer, retreating into the inner sanctum where no beast may hang claw.

The metallic clang of the storm door swings, tumbled lock responds to key, and I hear my beloved.

” We are not through. Make no mistake.” He glowers in corner vehemently eyeing my husband as he passes and then slips through the door, rubber shod foot falls heard by no one but me.

My beloved comes to my side of the bed, reaches down, murmurs softly of his love. I drink in the scent of tractor grease and paint, the faint clean smell of our lavender detergent, the loamy smell of the country that defines so much of who he is, and my heart pounds softer and softer in my ears, slowing to gentle cadence.

He is home.

I curl in arm, drink of his warmth, and slip closer to the edge of sleep. As the mist falls, Another whispers an Everlasting love.

Morning will come. It always does. The visitor waits.

—

To read part two: Morning Has Broken.

To read part three: Redemption.

The very happiest of Thanksgiving wishes to you!

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    This time last year, I was in a quiet, reflective mood. I think I was still caught by the reality of nearly losing my life- time felt so very different. Crisper, faster, clearer. There was this awed grateful acknowledgment of God's grace that I was still living and breathing and moving, that I had children to love and care for, that I could still see my husband's face, and even more miraculous—two days before Thanksgiving, I discovered that a babe grew within me- my dear wee Josiah, who is now four (four! my goodness!) months old.

    Such a year has passed. It has been the scariest year of my life, but also the most amazing year of my life. God is good. He has shown Himself faithful over and over and over again. This year has not been about me. It's been about Him. His leading. His provision. He had to take me out into the desert so that I could hear His voice, still and small, calling on the wind. I can say, from the darkest, scariest, strangest place that God is good. All the time. It is not some trite little Sunday call and response to me anymore. It is the life I've lived for this life-changing year. Friends, don't wait until God has to drag you kicking and screaming into the desert so you can hear. You have a chance right now to believe that He is your everything. He is all you've ever needed, ever will need, all you've ever wanted. No matter how many times you fall down, no matter how dirty, no matter how broken, He loves you. Loves, loves, loves, beyond every measure, beyond what you can imagine, you- from the top of your beautiful head to your very tippy toes. Can you believe that? I do. I know.

    That is what I am thankful for: LIFE. His life. Life more abundantly. Life in a whole different way that I ever knew before. Eternal life. He died, so that I could LIVE. I am grateful for the Love that saved me.

    Have a wonderful, blessed, family-filled day, dear friends! I'll be back on Friday with our adventure to an 18th century Thanksgiving…did you know we can still time travel?

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